Aira partners with VFO to fill in gaps of current screen readers

VFO, partners of the JAWS screen reading solution for blind and visually impaired individuals and Aira, the service which partners blind and visually impaired people to human agents and AI to complete tasks, are teaming up. Now, when using a VFO device or service, such as jaws, and sighted access is required to see the screen, users can access Aira free of charge to fill in some of the gaps to bring blind and VI users closer to parity with their sighted counterparts.
According to Aira,

This new integration was driven by community data, with the goal of providing access to any information on a computer screen the specialized software may not able to interpret, while simultaneously increasing the user s efficiency and prioritizing the features driven by the data.

It is reasonable to expect that data used in this way will hopefully provide new goals and objectives for screen reader developers, to improve their products and reduce the need for human intervention in future. The service will also be used to improve Chloe, the in-built horizon AI developed by Aira. Greg Stilson, Director of Product Management at Aira says,

We are thrilled to partner with VFO, an organization best-known for developing today s most widely-used screen reader. Through our newly combined platform, we can now offer more powerful ways to access all information both physical and digital. By using our Aira Access Networks, any VFO customer can tap a button and instantly connect with a highly-trained Aira agent, ready to resolve the task at hand.

Eric Damery, Vice President of Software Product Management continued:

There has been so much excitement around Aira already, and for our customers to benefit from this partnership and take advantage of assistance like this while on their computer or working with our hardware, is fantastic. Working with Aira on this project is a great fit, and naturally coincides with our goal of providing excellent support to our customers.

To make use of this new partnership, VFO users should download the Aira app either on iOS or Android, after which point they can sign up as a guest at aira.io/app and begin to use the service.

Tangela Mahaffey is a barely reformed English Major currently residing in Colorado. She reads entirely too many fantasy books and takes almost nothing seriously, including herself. She loves technology, music, writing, puns, and cats. She can be reached on twitter @tmmahaff